Microtomes are used, for example, to prepare thin sections of tissue that can then be investigated microscopically. Microtomes have for this purpose a knife holder having a very sharp blade. Disposable blades have become established in particular in the laboratory sector, a blade being disposed of after a number of sectioning operations and replaced with a new blade. One such knife holder is described in DE 10 2004 051 974 A1. Here the blades must be changed manually. As an improvement, DE 10 2007 006 826 B1 describes a knife holder in which blade changing is assisted by a driver. New blades are taken out of a blade supply container in which a blade stack made up of multiple blades is received in spring-loaded fashion, and are slid into a blade receptacle. A used blade present in the blade receptacle is thereby pushed backward out of the blade receptacle and disposed of into a blade disposal container. This design requires a relatively large amount of space. The sliding out of the used blade can also be impeded, for example, by jamming or oversliding.
It is desirable to have available a blade changing apparatus that is improved in particular in this regard.